'Babylon A.D.' Helmer Called the Movie 'Stupid'

August 27, 2008 (5:14 am) GMT

Commenting on his upcoming action movie, Mathieu Kassovitz revealed that he is not satisfied with his 'Babylon A.D.' and even believes that it is full of stupidity.

"Babylon A.D." is about to make its debut in the theaters this coming Friday on August 29, but instead of celebrating that fact, its director Mathieu Kassovitz obviously is in the foul mood about his forthcoming action movie. In fact, the French filmmaker hates the project he has been working on for the past five years so bad he even described it as "stupid".

Sharing his resentment towards the Vin Diesel-starrer film to AMC, the "Gothika" director admitted that it fails to deliver any of the messages it should send to the audience. "It's pure violence and stupidity," he said. "The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24."

Putting the blame on the studio for the mess, he pointed out that they have made everything from the budget to the editing of the film. "Fox was sending lawyers who were only looking at all the commas and the dots. They made everything difficult from A to Z," so he claimed. He further added, "I should have chosen a studio that has guts. Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I'm ready to go to war against them, but I can't because they don't give a s--t."

Additionally, he confessed that he didn't get the freedom to develop the movie the way he wanted it to be. "I'm very unhappy with the film," he explained. "I never had a chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be. The script wasn't respected. Bad producers, bad partners, it was a terrible experience."

Though sending a bad vibe, the 41-year-old still noted that there are some parts of it that he likes saying, "I like the energy of it and I got some scenes I'm happy with. But I know what I had - I had something much better in my hands but I just wasn't allowed to work." He also said, "The scope of the original book was quite amazing. The author was very much into geopolitics and how the world is going to evolve. He saw that as wars evolve, it won't be just about territories any more, but money-driven politics. As a director it's something that's very attractive to do."

Adapted from Maurice Georges Dantec's French novel Babylon Babies, "Babylon A.D." follows a mercenary hired to transport a woman with a great secret from Eastern Europe to New York. It stars also Melanie Thierry, Michelle Yeoh, Vincent Cassel and Gerard Depardieu among others.